Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google


OpenStax College Adding 10 New Textbooks by 2017

OpenStax College
OpenStax College founder Rich Baraniuk with some of the publisher's free textbooks (photo: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

Rice University's OpenStax College will add 10 new titles to its catalog of free textbooks by 2017, thanks to $9.5 million in grant funding from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Rice alumni John and Ann Doerr and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, all longtime supporters of the institutions open educational resources efforts.

OpenStax College's peer-reviewed textbooks are available online for free or in print at a low cost. The books have been downloaded more than 650,000 times and have been adopted in nearly 900 courses at community colleges, four-year colleges, universities and high schools. With the latest round of funding, the nonprofit publisher is focusing on developing more textbooks for high-enrollment courses, including several science and mathematics courses.

"Our books are opening access to higher education for students who couldn't otherwise afford it," said Rice Professor Richard Baraniuk, founder and director of OpenStax College, in a press release. "We've already saved students millions of dollars, and thanks to the generosity of our philanthropic partners, we hope to save students more than $500 million by 2020."

For more information, visit the OpenStax College site.

About the Author

Rhea Kelly is editor in chief for Campus Technology, THE Journal, and Spaces4Learning. She can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • circuit patterns

    Anthropic Launches Lower-Cost Claude Sonnet 5

    Anthropic has released Claude Sonnet 5, positioning the model as its most autonomous mid-tier offering to date and a lower-cost alternative to its flagship Opus 4.8 system. The company said the model can plan multi-step tasks, operate tools such as browsers and terminals, and complete agentic work at a level that previously required larger and more expensive models.

  • laptop displaying a red padlock icon sits on a wooden desk with a digital network interface background

    Malware Turns Microsoft 365 Calendar Into Covert Attack Vector

    Security researchers at Group-IB have uncovered a Windows malware strain that turns Microsoft 365 calendars into covert channels for receiving commands and stealing files from targeted organizations.

  • artificial intelligence on laptop

    OpenAI to Combine AI Products into Desktop 'Superapp'

    OpenAI is reportedly developing a desktop application that would combine several of its emerging AI products into a single platform, according to reports, marking the latest step in the company's effort to transform ChatGPT from a standalone chatbot into a broader productivity and automation environment.

  • abstract malware attack

    Report: AI Ransomware Can Now Run Much of an Attack Without Human Help

    Ransomware attacks are becoming more automated, and AI could take that much further, according to global cybersecurity company NCC Group's July 2026 threat intelligence report.